13

I understand bitcoin uses blockchain technology to maintain a decentralised ledger of all transactions. I have also read many posts eluding to future applications of blockchain technology, none of which have been very clear to me.

Is blockchain technology simply a decentralised database with consensus validation of the data? If this was the case surely the db would grow to be too large to be effectively decentralised?

To help me understand, can anyone point me to a clear example of a non-bitcoin blockchain application?

Machavity
  • 30,841
  • 27
  • 92
  • 100
Dercni
  • 1,216
  • 3
  • 18
  • 38

6 Answers6

6

Yes, its true that the blockchain database would grow overtime which is what is called "blockchain bloat". Currently the blockchain growth of Bitcoin is roughly less than 100mb a day. Today (2016) the bitcoin blockchain takes up about 60-100GB of space which took about 6 years to accumulate. It is indeed growing faster, but also limited by the blocksize cap of 1MB per block (every 10 minutes). Some proposed solutions have been:

  • SPV nodes: This is how your phone doesn't need to download the entire blockchain, but retrieve its data from SPV nodes that have the entire blockchain.
  • Lightning network - This is how Bitcoin can overcome the 1MB memory cap.

Those are just some of the solutions for bitcoin that I know of, as for altcoin related solutions. NXT/Ardor has implemented the solution of pruned data, because NXT/Ardor gives the ability to upload arbitrary data and messages onto its blockchain, the bloat is much more apparent in this scenario. The NXT/Ardor blockchain has the ability to delete previous data every 2 weeks and only keep the hash of its data on the blockchain which only takes a few KB. They also have the ability to retain all of the blockchain data with the pruning turned off which would mark a node as an Archival Node and other nodes can replicate this node and become an Archival node.

From my understanding NXT/Ardor has been one of the few blockchains that has production ready decentralized data storage system, marketplace, stock exchange, and messaging system built into its blockchain.

Patoshi パトシ
  • 21,707
  • 5
  • 29
  • 47
  • 2
    Any examples of real life blockchain applications other than crypto currencies? – Dercni Aug 12 '16 at 23:13
  • I wouldn't classify some of these applications as crypto-curencies like NXT, but more of a blockchain platform for building applications on it. It's just that tokens are required to write to the blockchain in order to prevent spam entries. Having to pay a fee to secure the blockchain makes the token valuable. Ethereum is also another platform to build upon. We just need to get out of the mindset of it being a crypto-currency but a blockchain application framework. – Patoshi パトシ Aug 13 '16 at 14:52
  • 1
    @Dercni, there are no successfulll applications of blockchain except cryptocurrencies. Blockchain is limited in perfomance to few transactions per second... – Stepan Yakovenko Aug 24 '17 at 21:34
  • @Dercni there are indeed successful applications of non-crypto blockchains. See IPFS, BigchainDB, BlockStack, etc. It's useful wherever there needs to be an provable, immutable, decentralised store of data. – haz Nov 15 '17 at 06:35
4

Blockchain is not just a decentralised database, but it is much more than that. While the original Bitcoin blockchain allowed only value to be transferred, along with limited data with every transaction, several new blockchains have been developed in the past 2-3 years, which have much more advanced native scripting and programming capabilities.

Apart from the Bitcoin blockchain, I would say that there a few other major blockchains like Ethereum, Ripple, R3's Corda, Hyperledger. Although Ethereum has a crypto-currency called Ether, it is actually a Turing complete EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine). Using Ethereum, you can create Smart Contracts that would themselves run in a decentralised manner. As a developer, it opens up completely new avenues for you and changes your perspective of writing programs. While Ripple is mainly geared towards payments, Corda and Hyperledger are built with a view of being private/permissioned blockchains, to solve the issues such as scalability, privacy, and identity. The target markets for Hyperledger and Corda are mostly banks and other Financial Institutions.

As for the non-bitcoin application of blockchain, you can certainly look at some companies like Consensys (multiple different use cases on blockchain), Digix Global (gold tokens on the blockchain), Everledger (tracking of diamonds on the blockchain), Otonomos (Company registration on the blockchain), OT Docs (Trade Finance and document versioning on the blockchain) amongst others.

Gaurang
  • 1,391
  • 1
  • 13
  • 16
3

Blockchain is:

Name for a data structure,

Name for an algorithm,

Name for a suite of Technologies,

An umbrella term for purely distributed peer-to-peer systems with a common application area,

A peer-to-peer-based operating system with its own unique rule set that utilizes hashing to provide unique data transactions with a distributed ledger

farshad1123
  • 325
  • 2
  • 10
1

Blockchain is much more than a "database". Yes the blocks on the chain stores data but it is more like a service. There are many applications of blockchain. Read about them: here. If you want to see the code of a blockchain application, try this one: here.

OneMoreQuestion
  • 1,693
  • 3
  • 25
  • 51
1

Blockchain is combination of p2p network, decentralised database and asymmetric cryptography P2P network means you can transfer data between two deferent network nodes without any middleman, decentralised db means every nodes of network has one replica of network db and asymmetric cryptography means you can use digital signature to validate the authenticity and integrity of a messages

Alireza Zeynali
  • 21
  • 1
-1

Yes, blockchain is a type of decentralized database that allows multiple participants to have a copy of the same database that is constantly updated and synchronized through a distributed network of nodes. Unlike traditional centralized databases, blockchain databases do not have a single point of control or failure, and data stored on the blockchain is typically secured through cryptography and consensus algorithms. Blockchains are commonly associated with cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, but they have many other potential use cases, including supply chain management, digital identity verification, and voting systems.

Sreenivasulu Bodanapati
  • 1
  • 2